A/N – Thanks to ScopesMonkey who managed to get this idea into my head by mentioning that she liked Phillip. She also once again was the beta on this. She continually makes my work better than it would be. Vielen Dank! It will be beneficial to the understanding of this story if you have read my previous work, but you won't be lost if you haven't. You just won't understand some of the references. Do as you wish!

Warnings- Dirty words galore.

Disclaimer- Nope, still don't own them.

People and Things

For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more. ~ The Beatles

The rattle of the pans, the loud thump, and the "what the fuck?" that comes from the kitchen as John hits the floor reminds Sherlock that he forgot to pick up after going through the cabinets last night. He shoots out of bed and races down the stairs. He's halfway there when John screams up at him.

"Sherlock, get the fuck down here!" That's two curse words; he knows John is angry now. He doesn't like it when John is angry with him. His chest is already tight in anticipation of the yelling. He hates the yelling the most.

"Right h-" Sherlock starts, but stops when he sees blood. His chest tightens for a different reason. John's hurt.

The detective manoeuvers skillfully through the pots to where John is lying on the floor. He squats down next to his husband and receives a glare of anger in return.

"What the fuck is this?" His voice is so loud that it hurts Sherlock's ears. It certainly will alert Mrs. Hudson to the fact that there is something going on up here - assuming of course John crashing to the ground didn't do that.

"Let me see," Sherlock says, wanting to see the elbow first. John is also bleeding from his forehead but that is a superficial scratch. There isn't much blood, the elbow of his shirt is soaked through. Sherlock is starting on the cuff when John snatches his arm away.

"What. The. Fuck. Is. This?" He gestures with his uninjured arm before placing that hand on the hurt elbow.

"I needed the dark cabinet space for a mould…"

"And somehow leaving everything spread on the kitchen floor seemed like a good idea. Bloody brilliant Sherlock. Bloody fucking brilliant."

Four curse words. Sherlock cringes but reaches for John again, "Let me…"'

"NO," John yells and struggles to stand. There is blood on the floor, not much, but enough that John slides on it. He has to reach out and grab the counter with his injured arm and winces in pain. Sherlock winces in sympathy as he raises his arms to catch John if need be.

"Fuck," John says again.

"You're leg is…" Sherlock has just noticed the rip in John's trousers. He is scraped up there too, and bleeding.

"I'm very well aware that my leg is bleeding, Sherlock. Thank you." Sherlock leans back as the words snap at him. He stands in a smooth movement, feeling the blood from the floor on his foot and noting a spot on his knee is well. It is inconsequential. John is injured.

He reaches for his husband but John steps back and glares at him again. "Let me look at it, please?" Sherlock asks, but even the pleasantry doesn't get him what he wants. John, almost always pleasant John, snarls at him.

"I'm going to go get a change of clothes, get a cab, and go to work, where I'll probably have to have stitches in my elbow. Hope the mould experiment goes well." The words slap Sherlock across the face. John storms past him, kicking the pots and pans out of the way. Each clang as they bang against the cabinet makes Sherlock cringe. John was hurt because of him. He hurt John. It aches in him as he turns to follows John up the stairs.

He enters the bedroom as John limps from the closet to the bed. He's pulled down a duffle and throws a dress shirt into it, and follows it with a pair of trousers. Sherlock walks over and pulls them out, refolding them so they won't be too wrinkled when John got to the clinic. John glares at him as he walks towards the dresser. Sherlock joins him and removes a new pair of boxers and a pair of socks.

"I'm sorry," he says as he adds the new items to the duffle, "I forgot…"

"Of course you are, Sherlock. You are always sorry." He shakes his head as he grabs the duffle and moves past the detective. Sherlock follows him. John stops in the bathroom and grabs a towel from the linen closet. It is one of the "good ones" that Sherlock isn't allowed to use to clean up his experiments. He almost points this out to John but doubts that it will be a welcome realisation. Instead he walks over and helps John tie it around his elbow. He's relieved that John doesn't pull away again.

"I'm sorry," Sherlock says again but John doesn't acknowledge it. As soon as the towel is tied John moves away. Sherlock's chest aches more as John stalks past him, grabs the duffle, and heads down the stairs.

Sherlock hears the door slam and creeps back down the stairs. He goes into the kitchen and sees the offending items spread across the kitchen floor. They hurt John. He hurt John. His stomach aches as he bends over to pick up the first one.

Sherlock waited three hours before he sent John a text inquiring about his wellbeing. When he hears the phone announce a reply he's ecstatic. John could have just ignored him. A reply is better than that.

As soon as he reads the message though his relief abandons him, "6 stitches in the elbow, 3 in the leg, giant knot on the forehead covered with an ice pack and it appears I'll have a black eye." Sherlock's stomach aches again. He almost types another apology, but stops himself. He's already apologised, and he is aware that it isn't enough. John hasn't called him, so he is still angry.

Sometimes when John is angry he only gets angrier if Sherlock keeps apologising. He's explained to Sherlock several times that just because the detective apologises that doesn't mean that John stops being angry right away. Sherlock doesn't like that but he can do as John asks. He's apologised twice, that is enough.

He sighs and sets his phone aside. He picks it up again and sends John a message telling him to feel better and to let him know if he needs to pick up anything at the store. He doesn't get a reply. He didn't expect to.

He opens his laptop and glares at the floor of the kitchen as he waits for it to boot up.

He opens his email first with the intention of seeing if he has any new potential clients. He doesn't but he does have a notification that John posted a new blog. He frowns, he knows that the blog will be a brief account of the morning's events. He opens it and it is.

Well This Morning Was Shit

Ripped Trousers

Ruined Shirt

Bump on the head

Black Eye

6 stitches just below my elbow

3 stitches on the outside of my thigh

A headache

A disaster in the kitchen

Blood on the floor

And all of this before lunch.

I hope all of you are having a better day than me.

Sherlock frowns again; even angry John won't blame him. A part of him is relieved at that and a part of him is ashamed. He thinks he'd feel better if John would rant at him, either in person or online. He won't though, it isn't John's way.

He opens the blog to add a comment but stops. He doesn't know what he's going to say. He can't apologise, he won't take the blame, he won't say anything. He closes the box and reads the comments that have already been posted.

Harry Watson – What happened? Call me. Do you need anything?

Bill Murray – Ouch!

Phillip Hannover – Horrible. Hope you feel better.

Phillip Hannover. Sherlock stares at the name. Phillip Hannover.

He recognises the name right away. The little icon next to his name confirms it. It's Phillip. Phillip, John's Phillip with the plebian name. The Phillip John was involved with at Uni. The Phillip John said he hadn't talked to in ten years. The Phillip who lived in New Zealand.

The Phillip who had aged very, very well.

Sherlock enlarges the photo and stares at the man. He has dark hair and a dark complexion. His eyes are hidden by sunglasses but Sherlock knows they are brown. He's seen pictures of the man while he and John were in Wellow a few months ago. They'd talked about Phillip. Phillip who was sitting on the bench with his arm thrown over John's shoulder.

Sherlock hates him. He is still very attractive.

Sherlock snarls at him. How dare he comment on John's blog?

Then just as suddenly he realises that this must not be the first post he's commented on. Sherlock hasn't checked the blog in several days, and he only checks the older posts sporadically. He frowns and scrolls to the beginning of John's blog.

Phillip's first comment is on the blog about John meeting up with is rugby mates. An entry before Sherlock had met John.

Phillip Hannover – Hi John. Hope all is well, back in the UK for a while. I Googled to see if I could find out anything about you and found this. Afghanistan, huh? I'm off to read the rest of this blog, but I hope things have gotten better over the last few years for you. Are you still in contact with the rugby boys?

Sherlock frowns again. The comment was left two days ago. He doubts John has had time to read it yet. His husband hasn't blogged in four days and John never checks the comments when he doesn't post. He also knows that John wouldn't have read them while typing up the quick blog entry he did today, not while he was at the clinic.

He starts moving through the entries searching the comments. There are nothing more than a few random comments from Phillip. He commented on a picture of Sarah and John at a football match. He says that she is pretty. He commented on a blog about one of their cases saying that it sounds interesting.

Idiot, Sherlock thinks. It was a boring case. He'd been annoyed that John had even bothered to blog about it.

The next comment he finds is on one of the blog entries that Sherlock has read over and over. It's one of his favourites. He's disgusted that the Phillip has felt compelled to tarnish it with his comment.

For Those Who Don't Know…

It's official. In a relationship. Most of you probably have figured it out by now, or assumed it all along, but we've made the jump. Sherlock and I are a couple. Yeah, I never thought I'd say that either, but it's true.

For those interested in the details, it started about a month ago and it's going very well so far. I'm happy and have every reason to believe that he is as well. He says so anyway and it'd be futile to lie to me after all ;). We've kept it quiet thus far for obvious reasons, but I think both of us are tired of hiding.

We are happy and we (read as I) are ready to share it with everyone.

Well wishes are appreciated. Thanks.

The entry is followed by a picture of the two of them that John had insisted on taking for the purposes of the blog. Sherlock had not been interested in the task but had agreed to it reluctantly. Since it was posted he comes to this blog on a semi-regular basis just to look at the picture. He always intends to print a copy and add it to the physical collection that he keeps, but he never has.

He likes coming here to view it. He likes that it is the only place in the world with this photo exists.

He stares at Phillip's comment with something akin to hatred.

Phillip Hannover – Sherlock? He's handsome, John. You definitely still have a type. Glad to hear this. Great picture. Cute couple.

Phillip Hannover had the nerve to look at this picture and comment on the attractiveness of them as a couple.

He moves through looking for the next one. He finds it on one of the blogs about their trip to New Orleans. The blog is about the cemeteries and their various states of disrepair. There are several photos of Sherlock looking into broken mausoleums and examining markers. It had been a fascinating experience and Sherlock remembers it fondly.

Underneath Phillip Hannover wrote, "Cemeteries? I could do without those. The rest of New Orleans is amazing though. Didn't we used to talk about going there? Glad you enjoyed Preservation Hall in the previous entry though. I can't believe you are involved with someone who doesn't love jazz? I can't believe that there are people who don't love jazz! :)"

The comment is intended to be lighthearted and perhaps humorous, but Sherlock is personally offended by it. Phillip and John talked about going there, why, when? He went to New Orleans with John, not Phillip. He should not be permitted to comment on these things, to judge Sherlock based on his lack of interest in jazz.

Jazz isn't music. Vivaldi is music. Mozart is music. He only tolerates jazz at all because John loves it. It's why he took John to Preservation Hall. It's why he surprised John with it. It's their memory. He glances at the wall in the hallway where he hung the photo of Preservation Hall that had belonged to John's father. It is their memory and Phillip Hannover has no business commenting on it. He has no business judging him. John loves him despite his dislike of jazz. It is not an issue between them, that he knows of.

Phillip goes a long time without commenting on any of the entries after that. Sherlock starts to wonder if perhaps Phillip stopped reading. The detective even begins to enjoy rereading the blogs again, especially the ones about the wedding and the honeymoon and the first anniversary and the second anniversary where John didn't mention Sebastian at all. In fact, Sebastian is never once mentioned by name in the blog.

He sees that Phillip has commented on a short post. In the entry that had originally preceded this one John had made a comment on their Christmas celebrations. He had suggested that the two of them had spent all of Christmas and all of Boxing Day in bed. They had, but Sherlock hadn't liked it being written about. Granted, John hadn't come out and stated it, but it was clearly implied. Everyone, even the idiots, had understood.

The day after Sherlock read the blog he'd left a note on the counter. "Please do not blog about our shagging again." He'd been too embarrassed about being embarrassed to tell John to his face. He'd checked later and the entry had been deleted. The blog that Phillip commented on replaced it.

An Apology

I owe my husband an apology. I was inconsiderate in blogging about him without his consent. I have happily deleted the offending blog and offer my sincerest apologies to Sherlock.

I love you and I'm sorry.

Sherlock was the only one who'd commented on this entry previously. Phillip had taken it upon himself to add something.

Phillip Hannover – Now I wish I'd discovered the blog earlier and found out what happened. I always miss the good stuff. Nice apology though. I hope he forgave you.

Of course he forgave him. Had this Phillip read Sherlock's comment he would have known that already. But he didn't, he just commented without consideration.

Idiot. Rude, inconsiderate idiot. Sherlock hates him even more.

The next comment Sherlock finds is on another entry about his experiments.

The Disaster

I don't know which of you lovely people acquired the sulfuric acid for my husband. I don't want to know. But I want you to know that it has been a bang up success so far.

I am now the owner of a new dining room table, a new couch, two new rugs, a new laundry basket, several pots and pans (a precautionary measure), and we will probably have to have new kitchen counters put in soon, along with a new banister.

Oh, I forgot to mention the acid burns that Sherlock gave to himself. My day is now not complete until I've had to hold a fork for him because his fingers hurt too much.

Thank you yet unnamed, masked person. No worries, Sherlock absolutely refuses to reveal his sources so I won't be coming to kill you in your sleep. However a giant pile of anonymous cash would be well received. I have furniture loans to pay off.

Sherlock still feels guilty about that incident and his fingers still hurt when he thinks about it. John had been very angry then, too. Very angry, but hadn't yelled at Sherlock because he'd been hurt. He'd never yelled at Sherlock because of it even though Sherlock knew perfectly well he deserved it.

And Phillip had felt compelled to comment.

Phillip Hannover – Wow, interesting life you're leading. Fun all over the place!

Of course they have fun, they have fun all the time. Just because one of his experiments had gone wrong, or a few experiments… It doesn't matter because John has fun. John is happy, even if he's angry sometimes. Just because he's angry doesn't mean he doesn't love Sherlock. He'd told Sherlock that more than once early in their relationship and John isn't a liar.

Sherlock frowns and moves through the remaining entries. The last comment he finds from Phillip, outside of the one he posted today, is on the entry where John talks about going back to Wellow. It's easily the longest piece John has ever written and parts of it are hard for Sherlock to read. So he doesn't. He does look at the end of the post though, at a picture of him.

Towards the end of the entry John wrote about some of the good things that had happened on the trip. It was basically a two paragraph tribute to the detective for being supportive to John through the ordeal and his excitement about going through John's old things.

Sherlock loves that.

The picture is of Sherlock on the train on the way back. He'd been staring out the window and looking particularly pale because of the dark color of his shirt. The silver metal chain stood out against the dark material and Sherlock was absently holding one of the dog tags between his thumb and index finger. The caption on the picture said, "My favorite image from the trip. Finally found Sherlock a set of dog tags. I think he loves them."

Sherlock wears them often when he needs to think clearly or feel closer to John.

He reaches into the collar of his shirt and pulls them out. He'd put them on after his shower because John is mad at him. They help when John is mad at him. He does love them, which is why Phillips comment is such a blow.

Phillip Hannover – You know I think I still have a set of your dog tags packed up somewhere. I saw them not that long ago, surprised the hell out of me. I can get them back to you if you want. As for the other stuff, I'm sorry you had to suffer through all that again. I remember how miserable you were the first time around. It appears you got some closure on it finally. I'm glad for that. Let me know if you ever want to talk about it.

What? Sherlock almost pushes the laptop to the floor. Why does Phillip have a set of John's dog tags? Why would John have given them to him? John never mentioned that before. And closure and remember how miserable you were, how dare he? Sherlock helped John through this. Sherlock went to Wellow and met the Bensons. Sherlock, not Phillip. Had the idiot even read the end of the blog post? Sherlock helped John. John had said so.

Sherlock frowns, going back to the front page and the most recent blog post. He glares at it, the lines about John's stitches and black-eye. He'd just forgotten to pick the pots and pans up. People forget things, even him, it's only natural. He isn't perfect. John forgets things too, and quite often. Important things, and just because Sherlock can't think of an example right now doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

He's just about to close the laptop when he notices that there is another comment on today's blog. It's from John, his John.

John Watson – Wow, Phillip. How are you? Just saw the notification for your comments, it's great to hear from you. My email address is on the right of the page there. Send me an email and we'll try to get together while you are in the UK. I hope all is well and I hope to hear from you.

Sherlock's heart drops. John wants to see him. He doesn't understand why. Why does John want to see this Phillip that he hasn't been in contact with for ten years? This still handsome man who has a set of John's dog tags and knows some of John's secrets.

Sherlock glances at the kitchen and remembers six stitches in the elbow, three in the leg, a bump on the head and black eye. All John did was walk into the kitchen.

Sherlock frowns and his heart aches. Why wouldn't John want to talk to this still attractive man who still has a set of his dog tags?